


They Say Fire Protects...

by GothMoth



Series: May's Phantastical Callings [10]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Blood, Blood and Injury, Burns, Fire, Gen, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-05-28 14:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothMoth/pseuds/GothMoth
Summary: Val’s tough, Danny knows that. But trial by fire is past her limits.





	They Say Fire Protects...

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Fire, Burns, major injury, blood transfusion, blood loss

Valerie groans as she clutches at her stomach, trying to stem the flow of blood, groaning, “shit man, fuck”. Slamming her back against a charred wall with a sharp hiss. This was not her day, not only had she forgotten her medical supplies at home, but she was also pretty well out of everything. Well, besides the stuff she rarely used, like regular bandaids. Looking down at the large shredded and burnt gash running from the side of her left ribs to her right hip bone, there’s no way bandaids were useful here. At least her helmet protected her from the smoke, and fire. 

This was also one of those days where she got reminded how she could never stop what she does. The nanobots make her blood a fair bit thicker and that made her blood just feel wrong, as it sluggishly spills over her fingers and arms. Plus, she’d rather take this injury herself, than some citizen; even if hospitals were out of the question for her. Pushing herself off the wall with a harsh stagger, she knows full well if she loses too much blood not only will she pass out but she won’t have enough nanobots in her system for her suit to function. Which would be a death sentence inside this damn building. Summoning her board with a groan, and clutching to it as she smashes it through the wall; gritting and baring the wall of flames that met her. 

She doesn’t get very far though before nearly slamming into another wall, blurry vision and flying really do not mix. She’s confused for a second because she didn’t actually stop herself or change directions; and it felt like someone cold was cradling her. Not only that, but the entire place looked like it just got a coating of frost. Shakily jerking her head around, at first pissed off to see Phantom’s the one holding her. But being a bit too out of it and in pain to respond properly, makes it impossible to not feel grateful. Both for the cooling touch and being able to be taken out of here. 

Phantom winces a bit and tries to bring his temperature up to a bit more humanly bearable levels without letting the fire pick back up, as Red mutters, “ish you, put...” he can tell she meant to say more but he has to push her head up and against his chest telekinetically, to keep it from falling backwards. Phantom had caught the tail end off of Red’s fight, her wound was pretty bad; even by his standards. And setting the entire warehouse on fire was extreme for any ghost. He knows her suit is really the only reason she’s not peppered in burns as well, and that it would help her with healing a bit but it was nothing compared to his insane healing factor. His cold breath making fog in the air as he talks, “Red, don’t be stupid. This is bad, do you have medical supplies at home? Don’t talk, just move your head a little”. 

The fact that Red’s suit completely deactivates before he even gets a response, only makes him more worried especially as she shakes her head weakly. Alright, fuck it, his place it is. Arguably he could go to Sam’s, but there was no guarantee she was freshly stocked up. Plus, Phantom never went to her for the really really nasty stuff, he’d rather not terrify his friends. So he knew he was stocked up to, what most would probably say is, extreme excess. 

Valerie has no clue why this Spook brought her here, to a hunters home. But she’ll admit, Danny’s room is comfy and the familiar setting reminded her of happier, and less painful, times. But something tells her Danny might be more involved with ghosts than she thought, enough so that Phantom clearly knows where things are in here. As she can tell he’s rested her down on some thick plastic, that definitely wasn’t just laying on the floor before. 

She has to squint to make out that Phantoms phasing his bloodied hands through, what appears to be random to her, different spots in the floor and walls. Though she easily recognises the Hagedorn needles and impressive, and clearly expensive, heavy duty bandaging. She’s more confused than relieved as Phantom floats up asking, “again, just move your head a bit. Do you need any special treatment because of your nanobots? Like special stitching thread or clotting spray?”. Ok, her nanobots make her different sure, but not that different. Shaking her head at him slowly, which he smiles at a bit. It’s honestly a bit weird to see that he clearly looks worried, which is not something she’d expect from any ghost. But she’s guessing that if any ghostly menace was going to play at really caring for a human, especially a hunter, it would be this one. This one seemed determined to get people to like him even if he destroyed people’s lives. But this thought made her scrunch up her face a little, there was no one around to even see Phantom helping her, especially now. So why? He had nothing to gain, heck he’d be better off to have just left her or he could have easily destroyed her. 

Instead here he was, cutting up bandaging with mini ectobeams and sorting out stitching. 

Phantom is really not pleased with how long it’s taking Valerie to stop bleeding, as he telekinetically changes out the cotton balls for the fifth time. Officially more worried she’ll bleed out, he checks her pulse; while she shivers a bit from the cold contact. Frowning as he phases out and sets up one of his normal human blood baggies. They were really meant for Sam or Tucker but he knew Sam and Valerie had the same type. Which he was currently rather thankful for.

Double checking the baggie before hooking it up to her, which he can tell she’s extremely confused by. He guesses it’s not exactly normal for a teen boy to have bags of blood hidden in his walls. Or for a ghost to know where they’re hidden, not to mention that she would be wondering how all this even got into the walls and floor in the first place. But Phantom’s more concerned about his parents coming home and checking on him, than confusing his frienemy. This was one of those times where he really hated his parents new, and strict, rule about being home directly after school so they could check in on him before he hung out with friends. He knew it was because they’d given up on having him home before midnight, and decided this was a better plan. But it was majorly an issue, right now more so. 

Valerie is utterly confused as she stares at the tube hooked into her arm, why the hell would a ghost even know how to do this? Not to mention how’d he know her blood type and where’d it even come from? “Just don’t pass out ok? This is probably going to hurt something fierce”, snapping her eyes back onto Phantom as he finishes up easily and swiftly threading the needle. Yeah? No shit. This isn’t her first round with stitching, plus she was out of it enough that she was more aware of the tugging on her skin than the pain of it. The new pain just mixed with the old pain and she didn’t really have the energy to even yelp from it. And something told her that was actually concerning Phantom. Which again, is weird. There’s no one for him to keep up appearances for now, so why? 

Glaring at the Spook a bit as he snaps his messy fingers in front of her eyes, “no. Keep those eyes open. I will smack you if I have to”. She’s not sure if she successfully sticks her tongue out at him or not. But both them freeze as Danny’s door pops open. 

Catching Phantom mutter, “shit”, before she gets that weird tingle of invisibility. Squinting at him as she realises he just turned them and the stuff all invisible, judging by how Ms. Fenton doesn’t freak out but she does sound upset and disappointed? as she sighs, “not home, again. I’m starting to wonder if it’s even worth trying anymore”. 

Phantom can’t help but feel insanely guilty as his mom shuts the door. Dropping invisibility only after he hears her go all the way down the steps. It’s a lot easier to focus on stitching when he’s not using a bunch of his powers at once, and he can’t let himself make her skin too cold. Ice was great for numbing but not so great if you flat-out gave the person frostbite. On himself, that wasn’t a concern and normally Valerie’s suit would protect her unless he dropped the temp to insane degrees. But this was an open, bare and burnt wound. Even if his ice was necessary here, he could easily do more harm than good. 

Snapping his fingers at Valerie again and glad that she actually tries to bat away his hand this time. Means she’s feeling slightly better, even if she’s still borderline unconscious. 

Clipping off the end of the stitching with a little ectobeam and placing the needle to the side. Phasing the blood off his hands and onto the plastic, before grabbing the bandaging. One majorly nice thing about being in ghost form and having a fine layer of ice right now was that it made him completely anti-bacterial. So he doesn’t have to worry about getting her wound infected or anything. 

Telekinesis is coming in extremely handy today, as he uses it to sit Valerie up without jostling her. Though she clearly groans from the movement, mentally berating himself a bit of not giving her warning. 

Valerie’s not sure if Phantom is trying to be a jerk, by yanking her up. Groggily spotting the bandaging at least tells her he had a reason to be moving her around. She wants to snap that she could have gotten up herself, but she knows that would be a lie and that Phantom would know it is. And lying to the guy who’s basically being her doctor, was an incredibly dumb idea. Especially since he, for some reason, seems to have medical training. She can tell the stitching is way smoother than any she’s ever done and as he wraps her up, she can tell it’s snug but not too tight, like he knew exactly how taut to pull and press it. 

“Why don’t you tell me what the hell happened? Keep yourself occupied with bitching about some ghost”, Valerie’s not sure what game Phantoms playing but there really ain’t any good reason to not bitch about ghosts. “Some big mouth ass...damn teeth”, rolling her head towards him and making a chomping motion with her mouth, “too close”. 

Wow, alright, no wonder she’s hurt. That prick was a nasty bastard, “sounds like Chomper. He’s dangerous, obviously. Prick bit off my hand when he first cropped up”. Phantom shifts a bit as he rests Valerie back down, and moves to change out the blood baggie. Talking as he’s setting it up, “aim for the mouth on him. He coughs and starts smoking if you land a shot inside his mouth. Pretty well downs him. But he doesn’t play around, he’s actually looking to kill. I bet he was chasing someone when you showed”. Valerie nods before glaring at the ceiling, “there was...a little girl...in the building. Pretty sure she...got out”. Frowning because “pretty sure” is not good enough. He catches Valerie jerk, surprised, as he duplicates and sends the duplicate back to the warehouse to check. And apparently, he’s doing a damn good job of confusing Valerie today, “why?”. Sighing at her, “is it so hard to believe I care?”. Apparently yes, as she just looks more confused. 

Back at the warehouse, Phantom clearly didn’t do a thorough enough job with his ice. Half the place is blazing again. Groaning, he decides to just leach out ice and frost over everything as he flies through the building for any people. Seriously hoping he does not find a corpse or burnt up kid. Only to promptly get shot in the face by an ecto-weapon. Shaking his head, “ow. What the?”, before sticking his head back in the room cautiously. Blinking as a little girl, Tracy pretty sure she started grade three this year, drops the gun and mouths sorry a bunch. 

Waving off her worry, even if that did hurt, “are you ok? Well obviously not, but you’re not physically hurt are you?”. From what Phantom can see, her clothing is a bit charred and there’s ash in her hair, but otherwise, she seems mostly just frazzled. Her running up and hugging him, hard, pretty well confirms she’s ok. Patting her hair, causing some of the ash to puff off, making both of them cough a little. “Hey it’s ok, let me just get this off of you”, that’s one thing about little kids, it always lifted their moods him using his powers on them. So it’s no surprise to him when she giggles as he phases the ash and bits of debris off/through her. Smirking playfully at her before phasing her out the building. 

Phantom both likes and hates how used to him phasing through the hospital ceiling with some citizen in his arms, the hospital staff is. Most don’t even snap their heads up at him, but they do wave. While the receptionist glances at waves him over. “Name?”

“Tracy Brendal. Burning building no serious injury but likely major smoke inhalation. There’s some broken glass in her feet but no ghost specific injuries”, Phantom hands her off to one of the nurses as Tracy’s playing with his hair. Turning back to the receptionist, “Fire department is being rather lazy, they should have been there way sooner. They’re getting too used to me I think”. Waving at her and catching her smirk as he phases through the ceiling. 

Turning his head to Valerie as his duplicate heads to give the fire department an earful, “well, you were wrong. But she’s fine, just some smoke”. Smirking a bit, “kids a decent shot with an ectogun”. 

“So that’s why...you flinched. Dumbass”, Phantom nods with a smirk, though he really should get her onto something more comfortable than the floor. Letting her stay here is plain risky but taking her home is probably way too much movement. Even if he’s a damn smooth flier. Plus her father would be home by now and he’d be utterly pissed she’s hurt. And her getting into it with her dad over hunting wouldn’t exactly be helpful or healthy, right now. Sam and Tucker were basically out of the question. Even he couldn’t risk staying overnight with the Manson parents around. And taking her to Tucker would be beyond insanely suspicious. 

And shit that’s right, Valerie doesn’t know the entire weirdo trio knows about her. She’d get paranoid about her secret, Hell, being here is probably going to make her paranoid as soon as she’s more fully aware and clear-headed. 

Rubbing his neck a bit awkwardly, “you want on the bed or do you actually prefer floors?”. 

Valerie’s not really sure why he’s even asking. Who the hell prefers the floor over a soft bed? “Soft”, she’s mentally gloating a bit at confusing the Spook. Even if he figures it out scary fast, as plastic floats over the bed. She’s not really sure why Phantom picks her up instead of moving her with his mind or however the fuck he does that shit. But him picking her up makes her notice the location again, with everything not so blurry she’s even more confused on why he brought her here of all places. 

Groaning a bit in pain as Phantom sets her down, “the Fenton’s, why?”. 

“The only place I knew for sure had what you needed. We both know hospitals are out of the option for you”, Valerie can’t say she’s surprised by that, Phantom knows full well about her nanobots. How the hell would a hospital even react to that? That doesn’t explain how he knew all this stuff was here though, or how he knew exactly where all of it was. Unless Danny told him, but why would he do that? Danny’s terrified of ghosts and there’s no way his hunter parents haven’t made it clear how dangerous ghosts are. Heck, they attack with extreme prejudice and they’re the most outspoken against Phantom. Danny would have to be insane to even be friendly with Phantom. At least she had a constant means of self-defence literally inside her. 

Glaring at Phantom, who’s cleaning up in a manner that seems almost routine and utterly calm. His backs to her so she can’t read his face as she talks, “Phantom, Danny’s room. Why?”. 

Phantom’s surprised it took this long, though Valerie’s been pretty out of it and clearly is rather exhausted. He’s kind of just hoping she’ll take a nap now that she’s fixed up and not critically low on blood. Her nanobots working overtime to fix her up faster, is probably tiring her more. He’s kind of always been curious about what that must feel like, kind of the same way his friends would pester him about how his ectoplasm feels. 

Turning to her and knowing full well she’ll be pissy and probably start moving around if he doesn’t actually give a real answer, “Danny’s not afraid of ghosts. It’s an act. The only way to keep his parents from pushing too hard to make him hunt with them. Instead, he helps me. Everything here is for me and helpful humans”. 

Floating over and crossing his arms at her, “you and the Fenton’s are not the only humans running around dealing with ghosts. You three are just the only ones not in my corner”. Valerie’s gaping at him incredulously and he can’t really blame her. No one outside of his friends really knows Danny Fenton, half his behaviours in human form are an act nowadays. Plus they literally dated, and know she knows both of them were hiding something. Ironically the same sort of something, secret ghost-fighting/hunting. 

Valerie’s not sure if she even believes this but she’s positive it’s true. There’s really no other explanation and she knew Danny had secrets. But for him to be flat out playing pretend and helping a ghost? That’s insane for sure. And not just any ghost but Phantom? What the hell would make Danny think Phantom was anything but a dangerous menace. Sure maybe Phantom didn’t screw over Danny’s life but still! He has to get earfuls of Phantom’s evilness from his parents so why? Glaring hard at Phantom and trying to sit up, glaring harder as he pushes her down and sighs, “you’re in no state to being doing that Red. If you want to play twenty-one questions save it for when you’re better”. Valerie doesn’t relent on her glaring, there’s no way sweet Danny would side with a dangerous ghost, muttering accusingly at him, “brainwashing”. 

Phantom simply rolls his eyes which is downright annoying, “I don’t have that kind of power. I know you don’t like me and clearly, you don’t see how anyone could. But Danny does, he always did”. Valerie hates how sincere he looks but she doesn’t get to comment as Danny sticks his head in through the door. 

Phantom had decided it was probably better just to interrupt her, and how better than to have his duplicate come in, in human form. 

Fenton looks around as if taking in the room before looking Valerie up and down, “and you look like shit Val”. Turning to Phantom, “care to explain?”. Phantom points his finger at Valerie, no way was he going to openly “expose” Valerie to himself, since he’s certain she doesn’t know that Fenton knows. 

Valerie apparently doesn’t care about her secret now though, could be the pain and tiredness or because she found out Fenton’s pro-Phantom in a major way, “ghost fight. You help him, why?”. 

Fenton looks to Phantom in a show of making himself look displeased but shrugs, “is whoever at least caught? And I’m going to take a guess and say she’s already fixed up. In which case I should probably handle this, she’s a friend after all”. 

Phantom gives Valerie a mildly cocky wave as he phases through the ceiling, while Fenton closes the door. “Well, I hope you’re not hurt too bad but I’m guessing you are, since you’re here. Phantom’s a good doc though, so I’m not too worried”, Fenton eyeballs her a bit as he sits on the side of the bed. While Valerie glares a bit, likely annoyed he hasn’t answered her question yet. Sighing, “he’s the good guy Val. I know you must not think so since pretty well everyone knows you don’t like him. I don’t know how much he told you but we’re close and yeah I help him. Always will, always have”. 

Valerie can’t help but gape at him, he really is insane enough to help a ghost. And always? “You idiot. Ghosts aren’t good”, Valerie’s not sure why Danny finds that funny. Shaking his head at her, “you sound like my parents. With all their garbage science, bigotry and false theories. Funny thing, the reason they’re against Phantom so much more than other ghosts is because he disproves their theories. They can’t figure him out so they dislike and fear what they can’t understand”. Valerie’s pretty sure his parents are right and Danny’s just being stubborn. Heck, maybe this is his weird way of teenage rebellion. 

“Ghosts are good and bad, no different than humans. And if doing what’s right makes me an idiot then so be it”. Valerie’s going to comment on this but Danny interrupts her, “Val, pretty sure you should be resting. Obviously you’re more than welcome to stay, personally, I prefer the floor for healing up. But you do you. I’m not gonna ask why you don’t seem bothered by whatever pain you’re in, everyone’s got their secrets”. Valerie can’t help but feel thankful that Danny’s such a good person, clearly too good but still. As she watches him smirk and throw some blankets on the floor, “I’ll nab you some food in the morning, so don’t be an idiot and get some rest”.

**End.**


End file.
